[schusterDEV]

You are most certainly going to feel the 'hacker'ness of blockchain, as most of the development tools are rough around the edges.

As for the developers actually working in the field, most of them have a background in either web development or a low level language like C. It really depends on what part of the stack you'd like to work on.

If you're just looking to get started, check out the solidity docs and open up remix in your browser: https://solidity.readthedocs.io/en/develop/

You'll get a sense of what the smart contracting language is expecting of you. Most of the development is still standard front end web dev with web3 hooks to the blockchain. So besides a basic understanding of how blockchain works (Mastering Bitcoin is a good start), understand how to code a basic web application and you're off.